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driving across the desert with a cold grape soda. I dream of sleeping beside Gainey on top of the covers. I dream of being out of here.
    It's funny how sometimes your dreams don't change even when your life does. I still dream that the Conoco's going to blow up. I'm working swing, waiting for Mister Fred Fred to relieve me, and this car wobbles in. It's muddy like it just came from the bottom of a lake, and its wheels are falling off. It's just like the beginning of The Stand — I'm sure that's where I got it from. The guy behind the wheel is drunk or falling asleep or something, and the car just rolls into the pumps. One of the hoses splits open and the gas pours down on the roof. It's a blue Malibu, the gas washes some of the mud off. In my booth I can see the muffler chugging out exhaust, and the gas streaking down the fender for it. There's no way I can get out from behind the counter. The zodiac scroll dispenser is in the way, and the Slush Puppy machine, all the lighters and Chap Sticks and beef jerky; it's like I'm buried. I look up on the monitor and the Malibu's on fire. The guy's forehead is on the wheel; the horn's going nonstop. There's a sticker by the pump controls that says In Cast of Emergency, Follow Contingency Plan, but I can't remember what the plan is.
    I never get to the end of the dream, to the explosions I know are coming. I started having the dream the week I started working there. It hasn't stopped since. There really was a sticker that said that. It was a joke; the manager never told us what the plan was. It didn't matter. Back then I was too drunk to be any help anyway. I would have stood there and burned.

    I dreamed about my dad for a long time after he died. Saturday mornings he'd bring me to the track and let me watch the stable-boys run their workouts. There was hardly anyone else there; you could sit wherever you wanted. In my dream, he was sitting high up in the grandstand and I was climbing the stairs. The stairs had numbers stenciled on them but they weren't in any order. I kept climbing and climbing, and the sun was hot over the grandstand. He was still sitting there with his hat on, far across the rows. And then the PA would come on —not a voice, just this humming — and I knew I was going to fall against the concrete and I'd feel it against my skin forever.
    I still have this dream once in a while, but right after he died I had it every night. And others too. There was one where he was driving his Continental around and around the block, and another where he came home from work and gave me all the change in his pockets. He used to do that in real life, but in the dream all the money was from another country; the coins were square and had holes in them and pictures of birds. Once we were talking, and my mom woke me up. I was mad at her all day.
    It wasn't just dreams then. Sometimes I'd see him walking down the street. I'd think it was him from the hair, or his hat. Any short, fat man who walked by. It got so I couldn't go to the mall. The gal who helped Natalie write her book made a big deal of this, like it proved I was crazy. Sister Perpetua said it's absolutely normal, so whatever you want to do with it is fine. I loved my dad and I still miss him. He was a regular guy and doesn't have anything to do with what happened.

11
    I don't have many fears for myself anymore. My biggest fear is that Gainey won't know who his parents were. That's one reason I'm making this tape. I don't want him reading Natalie's book and thinking it's the truth.
    Honey, I love you and I'm always looking over you, and so's your daddy. I know this won't answer everything. We were young and mixed up. Don't you be that way; you see what it leads to.
    That's about it for fears. After a while you understand it's a waste of time. There's only so much you control.
    I used to be afraid of the weather. Out near Depew you could see it coming a hundred miles away. You were supposed to get hail right before a tornado.